More on Obama's no new taxes promiseFollow

Also, cash tolls cost twice as much as they ding you for with an I-Pass transponder.

What it has to do with is that Obama promised he wouldn't do it:




He had a habit of playing fast and loose with the word "taxes", but when pressed he and his staff did on several occasions insist that his tax cuts applied to "all taxes". Of course, that's exactly because us evil Republicans realized immediately that while he was promising income tax cuts, he pretty obviously was going to offset that with tax increases in other areas (duh!). But when he was called on it, and couldn't wriggle out of answering directly, he basically lied. Well. Not "basically" so much as "blatantly".


So yeah. We're going to point this out.

I always had an EZ-Pass from my job when I worked in the NY area. Now commuting up to Albany without one is pretty annoying.

I wondered if anyone else was going to come to this conclusion.

We can argue the merits of behaviour taxes all day; I call them behaviour taxes because that's what they are. Taxes to control behaviour. And once something begins being taxed it never stops and only increases. Obama sold his lies about no new taxes to the "moderates". They were so ready for change they didn't look at the person they elected. Now they're going to be the ones hardest hit.

ANY input into a system like finance, causes a different output.

Raising or implementing a tax to control behavior creates a burden on the system which WILL be either absorbed or compensated for elsewhere.

If a retailers profits go down because hes selling less tobacco, alcohol, or cholesterol dipped potato shards, he will either: Raise prices or lower costs.

Not debateable (unless he just goes outta business) said retailer will also,
incongruosly, pay LESS taxes himself. thus nullifi...yada yada on and on.

A true reform in this regard would look like: Cigarette tax raised, exact increase returned in the form of subsidies on Nicorette gum (for instance)
which could only be sold by people already selling cigarettes
this would create a "mini closed system" with a minimum of other impact.

Eventually, this would lead to $20.00 a pack smokes & free nicorette !
& the retailer would be making the same profits & paying the same taxes

And would hopefully lead to controlling negative health impact behavior.

/derail off (sorry had to say it.)

Any discussion of tax policy has to start with the knowledge that the wealthy
ALLREADY pay the majority of the taxes, and that a lot of policy that appears to bring social equity, actually does the opposite.

Its VERY easy to demonstrate how gas & alcohol taxes harm the poor significantly more than the wealthy, as do carbon neutral schemes.

Do the working poor drive the newest, most fuel efficient models ?

I would seriously support a politician (from either side) who had the guts to be honest about thinly disguised revenue grabbing schemes.

I mean, what if that homeless guy on the corner could go sell his miniscule carbon footprint for enough to get into an apartment & maybe change his life?

Assuming taxes aren't raised on anything you use of course. Assuming at least the broad strokes of the article are correct, they're looking to raise 1.5 Trillion dollars to help pay for new health care spending. It's a reasonable bet that something they find to tax will impact you somehow...

More relevantly, those taxes will impact some people (a whole lot of people). And it's a good bet that most of those people will earn less than 250k a year.



/shrug

Given that a pretty core component of liberal social policy revolves around the group that something affects most regardless of whether it's targeted at them or not, this is kind of a weak argument IMO. Go ahead and propose a tax on Kool cigarettes and then count the seconds until someone calls you a racist if you're unclear what I'm talking about.


While I'm not a big fan of the reasoning behind that sort of associative policy myself, if you're taxing things overwhelmingly purchased by poor and working class people, it's at least a little bit misleading to insist that you're not going to raise their taxes one cent.


Put this another way. Obama promised a set of social spending increases which will have to be paid for one way or another. At the same time, he promised no taxes on people making under 250k. Yes. The assumption was that he was talking about income taxes. However, Conservatives realized that he'd have to generate that revenue somehow and argued that he would likely just raise tax revenue by various consumption taxes, while while not income taxes, would still largely be paid by exactly the group he's claiming he's not going to tax more. That's why they pressed him on the issue. It's also why there's only a quote or two out there where he insists it's "all taxes" (or "any taxes"). He had to be directly questioned on the issue of other types of taxes because he normally kept his statements vague enough that people could assume he meant "no taxes", but he could claim he just meant "income taxes" later.

The spirit of what he was claiming is that people making that much money or less will not be financially impacted by his economic policies. That's what people assume when you say "I'm not going to raise your taxes". Wiggling through on a technicality is still deceptive at best. We can quibble over the definition of "lie" if we want, but it's clear that he wanted people to believe something which was not true and was pretty deliberate about misleading them on that issue. Worse, when specifically asked about it, he very clearly and blatantly lied about it.

Sure. Except that's exactly why the subject was brought up that way. To me, it's a matter of intent. If your intention is to not increase the tax burden on the people, and you make a statement like Obama did, you can be as specific or vague as possible and it doesn't really matter. But what appears to have happened is that Obama knew he was going to increase spending, knew he'd have to raise tax revenue to pay for it, and deliberately planned to tax consumption instead of income specifically so that he could talk about "no tax increase for families making 250k or less" and be able to "technically' be telling the truth.

He was counting on the implied income tax angle as an "out" to what he was doing. And no matter how you slice it, that's dishonest. He set out deliberately to mislead the public. He chose to use consumption taxes exactly so he could play games with the meaning of the word "taxes" after the fact to try to wiggle around his promise. That's dishonest by itself, but when conservatives realized that was what he was doing (and it wasn't hard to figure out), and managed to nail him down on it, he *still* insisted that he wasn't going to raise any taxes. Which isn't just dishonest, but an outright lie.




He's borrowing half of the money he's spending this year. Presumably so that it's not too obvious that he's going to break that tax promise. At some point, we will have to pay the 1.8 trillion dollars he's borrowing this year back. And the similar amount next year, and the next, and the next.

Let me restate that. Half of his budget is being spent with borrowed money. That means that to balance the budget today, he'd have to double all taxes across the board. Double. All taxes. If he leaves some taxes (like income tax) untouched, he's going to have to increase other forms of taxes even more to make up for it. While the whole "open up a new treasury" bit is hyperbole, the substance of your friends statement appears to be correct. Unless something drastically changes, we will see massive increases to our taxes across the board in the next few years.


Maybe you should have listened to those people angry about taxes during the campaign. Just a thought...





So that they can exist even further inside the liberal echo chamber? So let's just not listen to anyone who doesn't agree with us? Yeah. That'll work out well. Especially when those people are turning out to have been right.



Let me lay out a roadmap for you:

Over the next year, we'll see increasing talk about the urgent need to balance the budget. Deficits are bad for the long term economy, right? So we have to eliminate that deficit. Of course, the presence of said deficit will alway be blamed on Bush...

Some time during this process, you'll start seeing some "independent think tanks" concluding that the only way to balance the budget will be to increase taxes. It'll be argued that this is the "responsible" way to deal with the economic situation we're in, no matter if it's impossible. Um... This will also often include comments making sure we all know that we're in this mess because of Bush and the Republicans.

The issue will come up during the 2010 election cycle, but most of the talk will be restricted to said independent sources. Republicans who oppose higher taxes will be labeled as "fiscally irresponsible" in the media. Democrats will stay silent on the issue, and just let the people assume that they'll do "the right thing" if re-elected.

If Dems are able to hold control of both house and senate, they'll embark on the process of raising said taxes. They'll talk about a mandate from the masses necessitating it. We'll see lots of plaintive talk about how our children and grandchildren shouldn't be saddled with our debt. We'll see more characterization of conservatives who disagree as haters of the poor and the children. We'll see more language equating paying off this debt to being a responsible citizen and that paying said taxes is a "civic duty".

In 2011, after "much serious debate" Congress will conclude that as much as they don't want to raise taxes, they'll have to. Of course, by now their helpers in the media have already gotten the most vocal voices on board with the idea. Thus, while there'll be a few ignored editorials condemning it, and looking back at the broken promises involved, we'll see huge tax increases that year. The mantra of the year will be "balance the budget". Most liberals will just fall in line, and conservatives will be ignored and denigrated if they oppose it.


And we'll get our balanced budget. And the crowds will cheer and talk about how successful the whole thing is. They'll announce a "return to fiscal sanity" with much fanfare. Of course, the federal government will now consume somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 to 40% of our entire GDP, but as long as we're "balanced" it's all good, right?


That's how it's going to happen. The era of big big big government is coming unless enough people see what's happening and stand up and oppose it. That's why the tea parties were done btw. It's because the path we're on is so obvious to anyone who cares to look. We don't need to (and shouldn't!) wait until the taxes are actually raised. It'll be too late then. Once we've so massively increased the size and scope of the government, it'll be almost impossible to put it back. We'll be stuck with it for a very very long time.


So yeah. I think it's relevant to point out every single thing involving taxes that's going on. To me, the only acceptable and responsible course is for the government to decrease it's spending. If the budget is out of balance (and it is, massively), then let's start cutting the budget. Isn't that the truer fiscally responsible thing to do? But I doubt very much that's in the plan the Dems are following...

Because I already did, and it didn't?

You do know you don't have to reply to everyone on the internet right? You can make your point and move on, it's usually more effective than defending every minute detail in such volume that makes my PDR blush.

So I guess that I should listen to the guy who says we need to make a new treasury so the government can pay people to pay itself? Right. Welcome to Gbaji mad-world.



Know what the worst part about campaigning was? The polarity of the people I met. I went door to door to all sorts of houses... and in central FL, a lot of those houses are staunch Republicans. You come up asking if someone was voting, and if they were registered, and either they treat you as a hero or threaten your life (which happened about half a dozen times). It wasn't even campaigning specifically for a candidate; despite my "Hope" pin, we were to register anyone who wanted to register. It's illegal to do otherwise. All we would ask is "Are you registered to vote?" and "If you feel comfortable, would you mind telling us for whom you plan to vote?"

That got me threatened, yelled at, and once, spit on.

Fuck echo chambers. I'm not a Democrat, but I'm proud to be a social liberal. While there were opposing views out there, I was glad to do what I did. When people weren't threatening and actually willing to talk, it was a blast. You meet extremes anywhere you go.

As soon as we build a second treasury to fulfill that guy's plan, sure Gbaji, I'll admit you have a point. Right now you are, as always, full of long-winded shit :)

Edited, May 14th 2009 7:07pm by LockeColeMA

And the quotes of Bush insisting that he wasn't going to take us to war in Iraq are where exactly?

People ask why I write long responses. It's so that I can be as absolutely clear about what I'm saying as possible.

If so, you're doing it wrong. I assure you, no one has ever interpreted your verbosity as anything but an attempt to so qualify and muddle things that you can attempt (and consistently fail) to cling to some small part of one of your posts when you're proven wrong.

It's sort of sad, really. It is, while we're here, a chance for me to teach you the meaning of "irony". The fact that you intend to clarify things by posting long meaningless blocks of text while the only interpretation of them is that you have no fucking clue what you're talking about? That's irony, sport. Now you know, and knowing...well, it's half the battle.